Towards Improvement of Environmental Impact Assessment Methods - A Case Study in Golestan Province, Iran

Environmental researchers in Iran have encountered serious and new challenges about the methods that can adequately respond to research demands posed by the country's recent rapid economic and social development. On one side, traditional methods of environmental impact assessment (EIA) have been criticized 1 severely by specialists and on the other, theoretical bases and practical conditions for implementing new methods of environmental impact assessment are not fully appreciated. Hence, the need to development of useful concepts and methods of environmental impact assessment is felt more than ever. The response of specialists to this need has varied between adopting complicated or simplified procedures in a hasty manner. This paper indicates that improvement of environmental impact assessment methods is achievable, using the basic concepts on ecology and the relevant fields. In addition, authors believe that determining the status and revising current methods of environmental impact assessment will be helpful to recognize the development trend of the EIA. In this paper, we review a new and of EIA and contrast it with a traditional application in Iran. To this end, a case study in the Golestan Province, Iran has been chosen which includes selection of two sites from five suggested locations for landfill and compost plants. The study provides a ground for criticizing and testing some concepts of the new and the traditional methods in selecting from the sites.